Action > Intelligence

Brilliant people who don't act are not that brilliant.

June 30, 2023

Life rewards actions. Not intelligence.

If you are smart, and have the potential to do something remarkable, but are not making the jump to act, all that potential is useless.

If you have a dream, something you would love to be doing, there are most likely other people less smart and gifted than you living that dream just because they made the jump to act.

So intelligence doesn't beat a bias for action.

Steven Pressfield calls this resistance. The omni-present force around us keeping from pursuing our work.

It's a daily fight against resistance. Some days you win, some days you don't. To move from idea to action requires the mindset of this fight.

Is there something you can do to make the jump?

Sure. Stating the obvious of "just do it" does not help much. What I have frequently done in the past is ask the people around me to force accountability upon me.

If there's something I would love to be doing, but struggle to make the jump from idea to action, I reach out to a close friend. I tell them about the thing I want to do, and ask them to set a deadline with stakes by when this thing needs to be done. And this does the trick for me.

Putting a verbal commitment out there and asking someone to hold you accountable is the easiest way to beat resistance and start acting.

Actions are more important than intelligence.

So putting yourself into a mode of action is the single biggest driver for success in independent projects.

But it is hard. Hard but doable.

Can you do it?